Adding Layers

The Wealthy Orphans invited Marlee Grace Cook-Parrot to create a dance to go with one of our new songs titled Judgement Day. Marlee brought in fellow Dance in the Annex dancer Amy Wilson to work with. We were looking to add depth to our performance by collaborating with professional artists working in a different but related disciplines.

Steamed broccoli with a touch of salt and melted butter is nice. Steamed broccoli with doused with cheddar cheese sauce sitting beside fillet of perch on a bed of wild rice is worth fighting for. It is all about finding the right relationships, creating the right context for what you want to experience.

Last Friday night the Wonder Wagon was parked out front of the DAAC like a heated ice shanty provided shelter from the blizzard that blew in from across the big lake. A place for a smoke, a cozy place to share a song. Inside the DAAC my hand pulled wood cut prints shared table space with textile curiosities by Rose Beerhorst. Bad Heart Bull in from Columbus Ohio performed a primitive shadow puppet theater improvised with the simplest of materials and took us all faraway to some where in the dark woods of the Ukraine in the 19th Century.

The Friday night of January 20th 2012 is a night etched in my memory to forever remind me the value of taking risks to creating art. You must take big risks to create art potent enough to light up a dark place and knit together real community at the same time.